Chapter 19 - The Call from the Grave
The hissing of the gas was deafening.
Oxygen filled the cabin air, feeding the embers glowing inside the open woodstove.
"Out!" Arthur shouted, his composure shattering for the first time.
"Get the girl and get out!"
Evelyn sprinted up the stairs toward Emily.
I found the strength from somewhere deep within my broken body.
I didn't reach for a weapon.
I threw my entire weight into the base of the staircase, tearing the wooden banister free.
The stairs groaned and collapsed sideways under Evelyn's weight.
She shrieked as she fell backward into the living room, crashing into the glass coffee table.
Claire lunged toward the broken stairs, grabbing Emily by the arm and pulling her toward the second-floor window that opened onto the lower roof.
"David, run!" Claire screamed down into the smoke.
"Take Emily! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!"
Arthur’s remaining guard pulled his sidearm and pointed it directly at Claire’s chest.
*Bang.*
A single gunshot cracked through the cabin.
Claire gasped, clutching her shoulder, but she didn't fall.
She pushed Emily out through the roof window into the darkness of the pines.
"Jump, Emily! Jump into the soft snow!" Claire yelled.
I heard the muffled thud of my daughter landing safely in the deep drift beside the porch.
I pulled myself up, grabbed the heavy iron fire poker Claire had dropped, and swung it with everything I had into the guard's temple.
He dropped instantly.
Arthur was crawling toward the broken doorway, clutching his chest, his oxygen tank emptying directly into the glowing coals of the woodstove.
The embers flared into brilliant blue and orange flames.
"David!" Arthur wheezed, his gray eyes wide with genuine panic.
"Help me! I can give you everything! Fifty million! A clean name!"
I looked at the monster who had spent twenty-four years hunting my family.
I didn't answer.
I turned and dove through the shattered front window, tumbling out onto the snowy gravel just as a massive fireball erupted through the roof of the cabin.
The shockwave threw me ten feet across the lawn.
The heat seared the back of my neck.
Timber, glass, and burning cedar rained down across the white snow.
I pushed myself to my feet, coughing up soot and blood.
"Emily!" I shouted into the black woods.
"Emily!"
From behind a clump of spruce trees, a tiny figure ran toward me.
"Daddy!"
I fell to my knees and gathered her into my arms, sobbing uncontrollably as the cabin burned like a torch behind us.
She was shaking, shivering in the freezing mountain wind, but she was alive.
Unbroken.
I looked back at the inferno.
There was no way Arthur, Evelyn, or Claire could have survived that blast.
The entire roof had collapsed into the basement vault.
It was over.
The Sterling debt was consumed by the fire.
Marcus’s truck suddenly pulled up through the trees, headlights piercing the smoke.
Marcus had neutralized the guards at the perimeter and had run to find us.
"Mr. Vance!" Marcus shouted, jumping out with blankets.
"Get in the truck! We need to get you both to a hospital!"
We climbed into the back seat.
Emily curled into a ball beside me, exhausted, her head resting on my lap.
I pulled out my phone to dial the state police emergency line.
The cabin was gone.
The debt was erased.
We were finally free.
Suddenly, my phone began to vibrate in my palm.
It was not an emergency operator.
It was an incoming call from an unlisted satellite number.
My thumb hovered over the screen.
I pressed answer and brought the speaker to my ear.
"David?" a voice whispered.
My heart stopped beating entirely.
The breath froze in my throat.
It wasn't Claire.
It wasn't Evelyn.
It wasn't Arthur Sterling.
It was the deep, measured, unmistakable voice of my father.
The man I had buried in a cemetery three years ago.
"David, listen to me very carefully," my dead father’s voice whispered through the receiver.
"You killed the decoys."
"Now Arthur’s real family knows exactly where Emily is."
May you like
"Do not trust the man driving your truck."
Before I could move, Marcus locked the car doors from the front console, clicked off the headlights, and turned the steering wheel down a dark, unmarked logging road leading straight toward the Canadian border.
